Tenants are now staying in one property for 20 months, according to the latest research from the Association of Residential Letting Agents.
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This figure is up year-on-year from an average of 19 months in the first quarter of last year, indicating that tenants are starting to take a longer-term view of renting a property. It is also the joint highest tenancy length recorded by ARLA.
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Over half of ARLA agents (56.9%) are seeing more tenants looking for homes than there are properties available.
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At the same time, there has been a sharp drop in the number of lettings agents reporting an increase in properties coming on to the market because they can & rsquo;t be sold & ndash; from 42% at the end of 2012 to just 29% this quarter.
ARLA & rsquo;s data comes from 527 member offices.
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Ian Potter, ARLA managing director, said: & ldquo;Our data suggested that tenants are increasingly sitting tight in their property and either reluctant or unable to move. This stagnation means fewer and fewer properties are freed up.
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& ldquo;We know that many tenants renting with ARLA member agents are frustrated first-time buyers, so it will be interesting to see if the recently announced Government initiatives such as Help to Buy will impact upon these numbers. & rdquo;
http://www.arla.co.uk/buy-to-let/buy-to-let-review/2012/
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